Barcelona in trouble ahead of La Liga start: what will happen to their new signings and how their finances are

Barcelona FC numbers are in red. What little money there is has come from that coming from long-term contracts. The famous “leverages” worked out by club president Joan Laporta with companies like Spotify, as well as selling TV rights, among others.

Thus, he managed to gain the senses of the market Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and Jules Koundé, in which more than 158 million were spent, not counting the additions of Franck Kessié and Andreas Christensen. In addition, the renewals of Sergi Roberto and Ousmane Demélé until 2023 and 2024 respectively must be added to the accounts.

However, all this financial wizardry under Laporta’s administration has a harsh revelation: La Liga. The organizing authority of the Spanish league may not allow the club to register all such players, because they do not meet the fair play Financially, or to put it another way, his team’s salary exceeds the club’s annual revenue.

Therefore, it is necessary for Barcelona to be able to activate a fourth lever and/or continue to reduce their wage bill by releasing more players from the squad. The candidates; Memphis Depay and Frankie De Jong.

Dutch sale

At the exit the internationals with the Netherlands. The striker, for example, every time feels one less than the team. The number 9 was recently given to Lewandowski and all indications are that his next destination will be Juventus FC for a fee of around €20 million. His current contract expires in June 2023.

The other thing noted is the 25-year-old midfielder who arrived with great fanfare from Ajax in 2019 for €75 million with a salary of 14 million per year initially, but reduced to three million in 2020-2021 and nine million in 2021-2022.

In 2020, under the previous directive, he renewed until 2026 on the condition that he recovers the remaining 16 million from these last two campaigns in the next four. However, according to The Athletethe new front office notified the player on July 14 that it had to cancel the deal because it has illegal terms.

“Frenkie de Jong has said he wants to cancel his existing contract and go back to the deal he had before.arguing that the terms given to him by the club’s previous board amounted to criminality and provide grounds for legal action against those involved.”the portal reports.

In this way, and as if things were not already antsy in the club-footballer relationship, the conditions of permanence seem very forced, so leaving to another club is considered the best solution for both parties. Manchester United and Chelsea They asked about Frenkie, but nothing is set yet.

The levers of Barcelona

In his first three negotiations, the club generated €868 million in revenue over the past two months, according to Laporta himself. This was achieved by selling 25% of the TV rights to Sixth Street – a company from the United States – in two stages. In the first, it yielded 10% over the next 25 years, while in the second it was 15%, also over the same period, in exchange for 330 million.

The foundation also sold part of 24.5% of Barça Studios (whose The facilities bring together the entire audiovisual offer of FC Barcelona) on “Socios.com”. The rest of the money went into the third lever, which was the negotiation with the music platform Spotify, whose contract was 225 million euros until 2025. Among the details was the name of the stadium Spotify Camp Nouas well as the company’s name in various parts of the team’s official shirt.

The fourth lever? Apparently it’s a work in progress. The media point out that Barca are already negotiating with a new sponsor.

This news sponsor is a Ukrainian cryptocurrency company that will become the first of its kind to join the club. However, there is nothing concrete yet. Except, A new study has revealed that Barcelona’s debt bonds are not as reliable as they seem.

The Barcaon the brink of junk bond

According to his study Fitch Agency (a company dedicated to the analysis of financial markets), a part of the debt of more than 1,200 million euros (470 million), is on the verge of a low classification in bonds.

In its study, the organization makes a ranking from the most reliable debts to those with the lowest ranking with the aim of warning future buyers how feasible or not they may be when it comes to generating profit in the future. Scales range from AAA to BBB. The latter are mid-range companies, but they are also guarantors of the green numbers.

the next category are BB, or “junk” bonds, whose fixed income security has a very high default risktherefore, They are not reliable. Into this gap Barcelona could fall and it would be a stain on the curriculum that would be difficult to remove.

“The negative outlook reflects the club’s poor financial performance in the June 2022 financial year against our expectations;as well as slower-than-expected deleveraging compared to Fitch’s (FRC) rating case last year.explains the agency, according to the portal 2 Play Book.

Being such a company would create less confidence in future investors to negotiate with, driving them away from Catalonia and leaving Barca to die in a sea of ​​debt.